FYI, this photo has nothing to do with the story below.
I read an article today called Anthropologists Call for an End to Classifying Human Remains by Gender and Ancestry by Jonathan Turley. Here’s a link to Turley’s extensive bio.
Here’s the first paragraph of the article. If this interests you, please click the link above to read the entire story.
There is an interesting controversy brewing in anthropology departments where professors have called for researchers to stop identifying ancient human remains by biological gender because they cannot gauge how a person identified at that the time. Other scholars are calling for researchers to stop identifying race as a practice because it fuels white supremacy. One of the academics objecting to this effort to stop gender identifications, San Jose State archaeology Professor Elizabeth Weiss, is currently suing her school. Weiss maintains that she was barred from access to the human remains collection due to her opposition to the repatriation of human remains. The school objected that she posted a picture holding a skull from the collection on social media, expressing how she was “so happy to be back with some old friends.”
https://jonathanturley.org/2022/07/18/anthropologists-call-for-an-end-of-classifying-human-remains-by-gender-and-ancestry/
Here’s another quote from the article:
Graduate students like Emma Palladino have objected that “the archaeologists who find your bones one day will assign you the same gender as you had at birth, so regardless of whether you transition, you can’t escape your assigned sex.”
What are your thoughts about no longer identifying remains as male or female? Do you think that it will impede or help scientific study? Why?
Impede. An end result is backed up by garnering as much evidence as possible. To not use all information available would be a breach and I would consider it unreliable data.
It does seem like scientists would want all data available.
Exactly. If remains are found, wouldn’t it be simpler to say that they’re of a female, approximately age 20-25 and how long they’ve been there? I mean…it’s science…
What happened to believe the science?
That’s exactly where I’m going. You can’t have it both ways. We either believe the science or we don’t. To ignore the science makes things emotion based rather than fact based
This was right up there with the words no longer allowed to be used at my alma mater University of Washington. It is scary that this is happening at the university level.
Yes!! Who is the arbiter of what we can and can’t do!! You’ve got me on a roll!!
I read that article yesterday morning and it hit a nerve with me too!
I added your post to my post for tomorrow because I think you spotted something really important to discuss
Thank you! I couldn’t get rid of thinking about that article yesterday. It hit some nerve with me.
I get it. It’s bothering me too
I think people are carrying this too far! A bit crazy if you ask me.
My thoughts too. But I am interested in what other people think. Obviously some people at universities think differently.
I think that this will ruin the credibility of research
It sure doesn’t help!
🥺
I am guessing that Neanderthals did not identify as anything, unless it was “Ugh” and “Ughwina”. So maybe they should just identify the remains as “innies” and “outies”?
Haha! I got a good laugh. FYI, my dad did a DNA test and it came back 98% Finn and 2% Neanderthal.
So he is a 2%’er? Does that make you a 1%’er?
I guess so!
That is a thin rabbit with an avid audience of one!
Ha!
I have an opinion, but I’m refraining on the comment. Not because I don’t enjoy controversy but because I will start to rant for the millionth time about the incorrect use of gender/sex as the same thing. They are not and while I can comprehend the reasoning behind the anthropologists views, I cannot fathom that even scientists cannot speak/write/acknowledge the very real difference between the sex of a human and the emotion-filled/identity driven social label that is gender.
That’s it. I would think science would be cut and dried.
Sorry, But this has got to be the dumbest thing I ever read when it comes to research. It doesn’t matter how you self-identity. A body is Male or Female
Males have one, Females don’t. Keep it simple!
Just my opinion.
I love it! You kept it simple and precise.
Another appalling PC police overreach. As Deb pointed out, sex and gender are not the same thing. And let’s not forget that dead people have no right to privacy anyway, though we should not be randomly digging them up!
It’s getting ridiculous.
Oh for goodness sake.
That pretty much sums it up!
This is getting ridiculous and I cannot wait for when the majority of “people” (can we still call ourselves that?) get fed up with this nonsense. Grab the popcorn and settle in for the show.
It is ridiculous!
I just can’t… I can’t fathom that science is actually debating over whether its appropriate to identify a skeleton as female or male!! Its a basic fact about a skeleton, oooh this world!
I feel panicked when science is getting mixed up with feelings and politics.
Yes!